In The Studio With Paramore

Last week I had the pleasure of going to visit Paramore in the studio as they finished up work on their third album.

After becoming bigger than anyone ever though possible with second album ‘Riot’, the band – not even out of their teens, remember – are going all out for world domination on their third, working with super-producer Rob Cavallo after a successful trial on the Twilight soundtrack.

The significance of this should not be underestimated. Cavallo was the man who helmed Green Day right up until now (feeling an American Idol-esque need to ‘step out of their comfort zone’ they’ve gone with Butch Vig this time), and orchestrated My Chemical Romance’s giant leap to greatness with ‘The Black Parade’.

And the signs are good. We heard six songs, ranging from a provocative little jerk-rock gem that’s probably going to be called ‘Ignorance’, an poisonously addictive FM pop song called ‘Playing God’ and a slow smoochie one called ‘My Only Exception’ that has all the signs pointing to a boulevard of broken dreams. Except it’s, um, happy.

We’ve been politely asked not to disclose quite where the studio is, for risk of stalkers and burglars knowing where it is. But suffice to say it’s deep in a gated community in a California postcode that brings new meaning to the word ‘aspirational’. It has excellent coffee, an in-house ice cream dispenser and an embarrassment of multi-platinum discs so intense that we didn’t even dare film them for fear of setting off the alarms.

But we can tell you all about one of Cavallo’s recording techniques involving gaffer-taping a mic to the door of the room in order to bounce sound off the opposite wall. Cavallo is also the nicest American super-producer I have ever met (if only because GGGarth is actually Canadian). AND if you head over here you can read Hayley’s version of events for yourself.

The album won’t be released until September – they had to finish it this early because right up until then they’re on tour with No Doubt. And who could have imagined being this excited about No Doubt coming back. In fact, I can feel another blog coming on…

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